


This Is Nothing

by XP1



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 11, Canon Compliant, F/M, Fighting, Kissing, MSR, Mulder - Freeform, Scully - Freeform, Season 11, Season/Series 11, Season/Series 11 Speculation, Season/Series 11 Spoilers, Tension, UST, episode rewrite
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-06 09:38:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13408509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XP1/pseuds/XP1
Summary: -be cautious - I'll find you - move quickly - don't wait - be careful - trust no one - check corners - be safe-





	1. Breathing

**Author's Note:**

> Mulder and Scully seemed weirdly in character and out of character through the entierty of s11e2 "This." I made my complaints on reddit and jotted down some notes of things I would have considered or that were odd, or missing. That got me thinking and I wrote out this scene, and I thought I would leave it at that but then I just kept on writing. This has a life of it's own now and I'll try to do the source justice, so hop on for the ride and let's go explorin'

"Two down all clear!" he yelled.

She kept listening for a moment, because this had happened before, not often, but often enough for her to double check the dark corners. She furrowed her brow at the noises he made, as he clomped around in the open, stealthy as an ox.

He was pawing at bodies with a frown on his face. She stood up, still cautious, with a deep, quiet sigh.

"Nice ditch." she said flat, amended by a slight smile.

"Nice steal.” came his inattentive reply.  “Home base, Scully..." he groaned out as he bent. He let the thought dangle unfinished between them. He poked a gun with a pencil and she thought he might bag it, but with disdain and ennui h just tossed it aside.

"My gun was upstairs." he said, forlorn and remembering. He stared at the bullet ridden books in the ruins of his shelves.

"Ah, well," she said, forgiving, feeling awkward and tense. "I'm the better shot anyway." she chided him as she worried her lips. He said nothing and stared and she had to look away. She swallowed hard and sought distraction from the gun in her hand. She checked her weapon then holstered it with a sharp solid click, and then she was back in the uncomfortable silence of him. He didn't move or make noise so she tried again: "Two to one Mulder." she boasted, hollow and false. "You owe me a back rub." she said with forced cheer.

He made a small noise and was quiet a moment, and worry spread seeds in the field of her mind. A Mulder in silence was cause for concern, and this Mulder was quiet AND brooding, so god only knows.

"Mulder." she said, sharp but with kindness. He came back to her slowly and raised his eyes from her boots. Her own look was hard but not completely closed off, and her eyes were threaded with panic as he sighed and sat down. He shook his head at her sighing and her worry spawned roots.

"You alright?" he asked her.

"I'm alright. You?"

He was quiet and paused, but he soon after. She let her heart resume beating as she looked at him with a predator's sharp stare. She was tying to find some semblance of him, of passionate Mulder who fought back when he was hit. The snowy planes of his face were soft and unmoving, and she saw no morsels of feeling writing under his surface. She grew tired of waiting though, in her hunger, and his lack of reaction was provoking her own.

"Now what." she demanded, more than she asked. He started shaking his head as he dropped his chin to his chest.

"Call it in." he said, worn out, but certain.

"You're not serious." she scoffed, feeding incredulity to her anger. The sneer on her lips crept in slowly but didn't surprise her. Their new lives made him rounder while she just got sharper. Most days that was reason enough for a fight.

He sensed her disquiet amnd just closed his eyes.

"What." he said, empty, annoyed, dead inside.

"Are you kidding me, Mulder? How the hell do we know that this wasn't -them-!"

"Doesn't feel like it." he said, undisturbed.

"We are being -hunted-" she hissed, "-in our own goddamn -home-. And you wanna run to the people who hunted us -before-?!". His flat affect pushed hers in the opposite direction and great venomous anger poisoned her veins. She stared as she paced in front of him in short arcs, and he compared her to a panther he'd seen at the zoo.

"We're not running anymore Scully." he told her, ignoring her stalking.

The sting of her glare was nitroglycerine cold and he'd shattered under their power before, but he's had it, he's tired, he's old and he's done, so not this time Dana Scully, no this time, we dont run. He lifted his eyes and stared her down from below.

"I will not be chased out of my home. If we call in for backup and they just move in to kill us...then fine, Scully. You run. But I'm not running anymore." The heat of her anger tried to melt his resolve, but he stood up and walked past her, letting her choose for herself to stay or move on.

But she did as he asked and he breathed out a sigh. It wasn't over, this dance, but they wouldn't finish it tonight. The exhaustion in his soul tugged down at his eyes, and he wondered if she would ever accept him as he was now. As she droned out her report, bland and uninspired, he felt resentment well up in the face of her cold. His lips started a snarl as she just prattled on; his home was destroyed, she could at least sound perturbed.

She was edgy and angry as she finished her call. If she stopped moving she'd start feeling and she couldn't handle that right now. So she hovered around him and she picked and she plucked as he frittered around, cold and despairing. She wanted hot wet emotion from the beats of his heart, to feed and sustain them as they outmaneuvered their hunters. She'd carve out the dead neutered notions with the scalples of her words, suck the passionate marrow from the chill of his bones. She needed him angry, needed his fight, and they'd be young again, strong again, defying the odds like they'd always done.

They fought, on the surface, about ghosts and bad timing. They used words but between them their hearts spoke volumes:

-Yes it was - no it wasn't -how the hell do you know - are you lying - are you - and - goddamn it you fool- and -of course it's a trap- -and yeah so what of it- and -I'm tired- and -I'm angry- and -im numb- and -I'm right- .

Their parallel arguments continued half hearted, while they busied themselves with the rote duties of their job. He tried to call true over the crime scene of his life, but was interrupted by bright lights shining through windows and tires tearing at his lawn. They both drew their guns, instinctual, in tandem, and as he watched the fire in her eyes he felt his heart sink.

"Too fast." She hissed but he wasn't listening. He just wanted to see who would kill him before he died.

He peeked out a blind and she crept up beside him, and they watched as twin trucks trampled soft grasses and hope. 

She thought that the trucks wouldn't stop, that they would just keep going, plowing right through the walls, and crushing their bodies. The great rolling Rams instead lurched to a stop and the trucks quivered there, idling, ready, willing, and hot.  Her weapon was worthy and felt right in her hand and she moved quietly towards cover calling him to follow. He didn't move, he just stood there, staring at her, pensive, and the absurdity of his apathy forced her to stop.

"What the fuck are you doing?" she questioned, confused and disapointed. He just raised his eyes to her and narrowed them slightly.

The look was intense and purposeful and -known-: Memorizing Mulder was memorizing -her-.

She turned her face from him and hissed out a breath. Her heart called him a traitor for the betrayal of his faith. He thought this was this was it, good bye and good night!, and her rage screamed -how could you!- but she kept her voice still.

"Mulder. -Stop-  that. I need you-here- and -now-." she shouted her orders but he just kept on staring.

"Goddamn it!" she cursed him, moving into his space "Either nut up, or tap out and I'll do this myself!"

Her words barely touched him and his gaze did not waver, sweeping over her hair, cataloguing it's texture. Unsteady and desperate, she tried to see through the red, as she forgot her demands and and tried to reason instead:

"This-..." she spat out, pointing a finger behind her,  "...this is -nothing-. Routine. This is -nothing- we can't handle..."

But he said nothing and his gaze swept over her face. Her eyes. Her chin. The lines of her lips.

"...this is nothing..." she repeated, with a little less resolve. "...we can do this. I promise..." she tried, her voice gently breaking.

"Scully..." he said softly, as the wheeled war machines whirred.

"This-" she tried saying, but he swept her into his arms. Her hot words slipped molten and hot on her lips, but he stopped their destruction with the lush waters of his own.

They were hungry and urgent, with need and with want, and the heat of her fear cooled to lust on his tongue. She bit the fruit of his lips but he didn't notice, too wrapped up in trying to remember the moment.

He growled as she groaned and they tangoed with grace and their deep primal urges began rattling their chains. The dark feral voices beseeched him in howls to just grab her!-just do it!-throw her down to the ground!-Part her lips with her pleasure, part her legs with yourself! -feel her strong body flutter and cry for you now!- feel her tremble beneath you as you gift her your future! for her to grow and to love and to raise and to nurture!- and fight tooth and nail to ensure her escape!- fight 'til your death through the torturous pain!- and rejoice as you falter and find yourself slain, for through her the beast Mulder lives on through this day!-

And they wanted to, God, they just didn't have time! and the dark things within them curse civilized minds but the light of their hope kept them human and whole and she's softer now, calmed by the proof of soul and he's talking to her and she's talking to him through the sounds of their pasions coming together

\- be cautious - I'll find you - move quickly - don't wait - be careful - trust no one - check corners - be safe-

They fought to come down from the hunger they shared and the cool of concern helped their mad fever break. He dragged his lips over hers, just lightly, just barely, and he was proud of them both when neither one sobbed. His nose touched her cheek and she grasped at his hair and they spoke in the stillness of each other's arms

\- your shots curve to the left - meet me here - meet me there - be wary - soft ground - don't stumble - be aware - don't worry - I'm here - don't trip on the roots - don't look back - You'll find me - I know so will you-.

There were new noises now, of doors opening, closing, and they had to let go, but they did so with mourning.

"This is nothing. I promise." she panted out firm and resolved. He tried to agree but the madness inside him refused to let go of his mate or his anger, and they cried out inside him to -fight!- and to -fuck!- but her breathing slowed down and he chilled at her touch, and he swam in her refreshing soft calming sounds and her composure and cool hands condensed the steam in his brow. She drank deep of the air in a calm patterned cadence and she taught him how coax things back to their cages.

He was fighting back hard to follow her down, to break free of the urgent cries in his cells. The old remnants inside him craved blood in their teeth, their fingers in organs and their cocks in their mates, but the song of her breathing was soft and melodic, and the music was calm and he let it help ground him, and as she breathed and he breathed and they breathed together he asserted cool dominance over the parts that were raging, and slowly, with her he came back to himself, quiet and calm and noble and proud. The air filled his lungs and it made him feel strong, but also cunning and quick and more dangerous now.

The drums of her breathing brought her war face to fore and her helm was a mask with hard eyes of grey stones. She nodded once to him and kissed him with faith -This was nothing- -they could do this- -they are together again- He bowed his head to her mastery and she stepped away. She crept slowly to cover and this time he followed.


	2. Ensemble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Christ...” he said softly with the hint of a laugh, “...you know some days I wonder if he knows us at all.”

He was practical and informative when he next spoke: he had 14 rounds left and he was hers to use as she would.

“8” she replied, acknowledgement sent.

He took her hand in his and brought her knuckles to his lips. "Bear" he said, slowly, kissing them lightly.

She narrowed her eyes and squeezed his hand

"Eagle." she countered, commanded and he nodded to obey. Bear it was then, if they got split up.

They moved to the door armoured and unafraid. He shouted back at their enemies and she stood as his guard.

A message blipped briefly from inside her pocket. She brought out the device to silence its whines.

One word was written under "SKINNER" (the sender):

SURRENDER it said, and she was suddenly cold.

Mulder glanced over and paused when he saw her, staring at the device with her lips curling into a snarl. She turned it and showed him, and he scowled alongside her. “Christ...” he said softly with the hint of a laugh, “...you know some days I wonder if he knows us at all.”

She twitched a small smile and reached for their jackets. Their toes flexed in their shoes as they put them on, and they dug into their stances, solid and formidable.

They spoke not, they moved not, and they did not surrender. Mulder yelled from their fortress to keep their enemies off guard. In theory, help was coming, cause they'd called it in, so if they could just stall-

Jack booted G.I.s in dark foreign dress smashed through his windows, descended down his stairs. Though their defences were holy they were soon overrun, but they gave what they got, and Saracens died.

They fought and they killed but thick bodied momentum saw them tackled and pinned, and though the struggle was valiant they were roughly subdued. They got to him first, being thicker and slower. He was made to lay on his back with three men to hold him: a man on each leg and one on his chest.

He heard her low feral grunts but made a point not to look: they’d learned early on not to seem too interested in each other, when this happened. He thought back to a time when they’d seen his look, open and loving and enraptured with her. Their captor took notice and tried to use his own heart against him and he’d raged at the man who ran his hands over her body. But she was smart and she was quick and in control of herself, and by the time she was finished she was barely even breathing that much harder. Their captor clawed at his now shredded eyeballs as she untied him, distant and pissed off as the blood ran down her nails. They’d decided after that that should they be captured again neither one would react to the treatment of the other, but it was easier for her mostly and sometimes he’d resent it.

To their credit their current captors did not seem aware she was a woman at all. So no rape he thought. Great. That’s always a plus. She was simply a target, but she was slender and fierce. They fought harder with her than with him to bring them both down. Amusing as it was to see her hold her own against at least three of them, it also brought a disturbing thought to his mind: big thick young men didn’t see women as threats, but these did, so that meant they knew about her. If they knew about her, they might know about ‘them’ and his promise not to look at or love her might not even matter.

They were treated as equals but had different results. The men on him were weighty, constricting, and solid, and she’d get the same when she finally succumbed. She was slippery and swift and it was almost an escape but the thugs tightened their ranks and forced her surrender. The floor underneath him shook at the violence of her fall. He heard a man curse, and grab her hand harshly, and he was worried about her landing but pleased to see her wicked smile. The man on her chest forced her hands to her front, and the beading blood welling up from the scratch gave rise to a thought:

They’d lain them on their backs with their hands bound in front...but why? No force with any real training would ever keep their captors positioned like that. Any army worth their salt trained their troops to detain captives, or at the very LEAST with the captive’s hands bound BEHIND them. Hell, Scully had just proven the wisdom in that, and yet there she was, still on her back, talons held in a grasp, but front and center nonetheless.

Paramilitary, he guessed, and thought maybe they weren’t so well informed after all.

When they were running they'd picked up bits of the language wherever they went but they never dared to go too far east. The word "phone" was obvious and he thought there was a word just passed that meant "found" but as in “when” and not “had”...or...dammit was it the other way around?...  
A young leader stepped in, smooth skinned and soft, his face retaining the slight padding that was characteristic of youth. He squawked and he cawed -what was he, like 20?- soft soviet syllables to be obeyed by those around him. When he was done flashing his feathers, the little commandant pointed at Scully and then pointed at him. The man on Mulder’s chest gave a curt nod, and the finger on the trigger guard of his weapon flexed slightly.

Well that's a bad sign, Mulder mind quipped, unhelpful, so he wound its grey gears and put his neurons to work.

The little preening prince was teething and upset: how hard could it be to find a goddamn phone. His lackeys had not found his toy for him yet, and Mulder watched the boy’s fear of inadequacy colour his reason. It was also VERY funny, Mulder admitted to himself, as half his brain compiled data, and the other half just watched on, amused. Mulder saw as the little jacked up commandant grew increasingly flustered by incompetence and failure and Mulder had to focus real hard on not laughing, because he hadn’t even hid it that well. His phone was in the oven, so it was in a box, with a window, like, right there if you just looked.

The tiny Tsar grew impatient and that drove him to action. He put his boot to Mulder’s brow and under steadying pressure asked about the phone. The threatening crush on his skull was waking his old ancestors within him, the ones who were feral and brutal and tens of thousands of years old. They rose from cellular slumber gnashing and fierce and they chanted and jeered as they commanded things of him. -Rend him!- they frothed, fast frenzied and foul,; -Tear the limb from the body and dance in the blood!-

As a young man he was often a slave to those chants but he’s older now, wiser, and devastatingly cunning.

He subdued his inner rage by searching outside himself, and through the clash of his fury he finds the soft sounds of her breathing. They were sometimes erratic and occasionally encumbered, but she kept to a rhythm and in doing so calmed him. He tempered fiery steel in the cool of her breath, and the strong steady cadence helped him to think.

"Where's the phone bro?" the tyke above him repeated, and though Mulder smiled slightly he gave no other reaction. He floated in silence through quiet pools of inhalations and his lack of reaction taunted his enemy into making a mistake

The old bestial things in young PhoneBro’s cells took offence -took insult!- at Mulder’s dismissal of his power. The boy started to snarl and took his boot back, and started grooming his ego with the sound of his voice. He gave orders because giving them made him feel big, and his servants obeyed because that was the law.

Right on time Mulder thought, as they were ordered to stand. I i mean what more could you ask for, if you’re trying to escape? Why the only thing better would be if-  
PhoneBro had Mulder and Scully stand before him, side by side, and Mulder risked a glance at Scully and saw hidden delight in her eyes. True, they were cuffed, and yes, cuffed together, but the little boy bolshevik had already given them so much, to ask more would be rude. Kids today, Mulder thought, what they don’t teach “divide and conquer” in kindergarten anymore?

Scully's hands covered his and she squeezed them both lightly. He stood on stand bye for orders and they came on her finger. She pressed the tip of a finger to the back of his hand, then pushed it upwards in an arc, with a small tap at the end. He reversed holding of hands, and covered hers with his own, and when her fists were curled up in his grasp, he squeezed back his understanding.

PhoneBro’s tantrum petered out when he was presented with his prize. As he examined the phone, his face shone with his victory. Jaunty and taunting he waggled it at them as he floated over to gloat. He made little cooing noises at his helpless captives and leaned in to jeer when her warhammer fists crack open his face.

A tooth passes by him unnoticed,lost in a memory, of her body on his, and her hands led by her hips. As the little kind crumbles Mulder remembers that warm summer night, as she choked up on the bat and swung for the fences. Someone is screaming in pain but all that he hears are the words that he’d said: In life, as in baseball, if you aim to connect, then make sure you follow through.

Which is why her weapons were loosed in the form of her fists, and not his. It was less feminism and more physics, because she is shorter than he is. As long as they stayed bound together, where ever one went, so too did the other. Her strike pulled deeply at his arms and his shoulders but wasn’t overly painful. If he’d been the one to swing with any appreciable force, he’d have to choose between striking hard and keeping her shoulder from dislocating.

‘Girl knows her physics’, and he’d never even thought to question her science, so he let his hands and his arms just tag along as she struck. And strike him she did and damn she struck -hard-, and as her blow landed he heard war cries in her exhale.

They weren’t perfect but they moved together with a calm practiced grace. Why it was almost like like they’d been trained their whole lives to fight, Mulder mused as he kicked out some thug’s legs,  To say nothing of the sex, which only enhanced their awareness - now they both knew first hand their range of motion while cuffed.

Mulder calmly grabbed the enemy between them and the door, and the man spasmed in agony as Mulder’s skull crushed his nose into his brain. The enemy crumbled but the pair of them pounced, and used his body as a shield, and his seizing fingers and nerves helped them out through the coincidence of his gun. 

When they had moved past the door he was no longer of use, and he was dropped on the porch where he wheezed and he blew wet bloody breaths into the cracks of the wood.

They ran through his forest, past gasping and gulping. They pushed and they pushed and they pushed and they -pushed- and there was pain in his legs and pain in his lungs, but the pain in his chest finally forced him to stop. He slowed them both down, and tried to bargain with Gods - promising sacrifice and sex and feasts in their names, if they could, just this once, spare him the irony of a heart attack after his escape. He imagined Scully grunting, annoyed, as she tugged his along, cuffed to his dead body. Someone ‘up there’ amused by this thought, and as he came down from his efforts the pain began to subside.

His blood pressure dropped he could hear things again, and there were terrible sounds beyond the roar of his blood. The noise of her breathing was gasping and shallow, and she pulled hard in her suffering against the cuffs that still bound them. Blood bloomed on her wrists while his skin own , and she bucked and she pulled like prey in a trap. She was wild in her pain and he noticed her favouring one side, and he realized the unequal result of their common manhandling was at least a cracked rib.

Mulder's stallion heart pounded carburetor explosive with rage and with fear. He tried to help but she whimpered and dragged them both down. She was drowning on land in the absence of water, but the old things in her cells demanded she -fight!-

  
She floundered and commanded her breath to be steady, but the sharp barbs in her flank had her gasping instead. The taut tearing spear in her side stops her ribcage from expanding. It contracts as she exhales but that too brings on agony. She too had made deals with Gods and dark forces, but at the beginning of their flight, not at the end. She’d prayed for just enough strength to be able to keep up as he ran on long legs and good shoes through dense tangles of roots. Please, she had begged with each painful inhale, please let me be strong enough until he can escape. She’d known the cost as she asked and her pleas were accepted, but now her running was done and the spirits collected their payment. She is grateful to them when his voice floats past in her haze and he is alive and she slips happily back into the sea.

  
Strong stone calloused hands kept her from breaching, and and there's no splash and no sea because he keeps her upright. Just as she’d taught him he keeps her propped up, and free of gravity her airway starts opening up. The salt of his sweat dropped down on her cheeks, and when he next called her name she moaned and let her sylphic spine go slack into in the strength of his hold. She tipped her head to the moonlight and drank of it’s calm, and her body is soon fed with the rich air of the forest.

  
The ecstatic panic of oxygen deprivation faded with the flow of the strong tides of her breathing. She let herself rest against the pillar of his chest and he coaxed her back to him with her name from the shore. He showed her a melody of his deep even breaths, and though pain made her off beat and atonal she could soon sing along.

  
“Y’okay?” he asked her, and she nodded back slowly.

  
He smiled broadly and kissed her forehead once quickly, delighted. She left the ghost of a smile on her lips as she focused within her to find strength, and his eyes fluttered closed, as he lost himself to thought.

  
The random movement of his eyes under their lids suggested he was dreaming, but she sat quietly and compartmentalized while he charted his land in his mind.

"Hawk?" he queried popping open one eye.

"No.” she said, breathy. “Passed it. Passed Badger too, I saw the signs."

"Then we're not far enough", he said, needing to move them. Wild roses grew only in one spot on his land, and if she had seen them as they ran then they needed to push deeper into the forest.

"Bear", he said, lightly, threading his fingers in hers. She said nothing but sighed once and nodded her reply.

"Ready Speedracer?" he asked with a smile. She chuckled lightly once as she stood but the pain made her groan. She leaned slightly on him as they began walking to Eagle in the stillness of the night.

  
“Do try to keep up.” she tossed at him as they set out together, and he barked out a laugh and held her hand tighter.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Kudos' keep me motivated, and subscribing means you don't ever miss a part.


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